Lisa Jackson, who used to manage a Georgia restaurant run by Deen and brother Bubba Hiers, sued them last year, claiming Deen used the N-word around her and that she was sexually harassed by Hiers.

Deen also confessed to requesting that black employees dress up as slaves for an antebellum-themed wedding, and claimed that she got the idea from a restaurant where the waiters were all "middle-aged black men, and they had on beautiful black jackets with a black bow tie...I would say they were slaves."